Almost Alright
by kaz456
Summary: Benny just wants things to be as close to okay as possible. BennyCollinsMarkRoger friendship, and others.


"Allie, baby, I've been thinking." Benny tried to use his sweetest tone—he knew that what was about to be suggested would not be to his wife's liking.

Apparently Allison was more perceptive than he had thought. "Don't even say it, Ben. Don't _even_."

Forget sweetness. "Allie, I have to do it." He knew that he did. If he didn't he would never forgive himself. "He's one of my best friends, and he's dying."

Allison shook her head, but Benny knew that she wasn't vetoing the whole idea, not yet. "Benjamin, _no. _After what happened at the wedding, I don't want to have anything to do with them."

"They're nice when you get to know them."

"I tried to get to know them!" Allison stalked out of the bathroom and faced Benny, who was sitting on the bed. "I tried to get to know them and they sure weren't nice to me."

Benny sighed and got up from the bed. He stood behind Allison in the bathroom. "Baby, stopping by the loft for ten minutes does not count as 'trying to get to know them'. And that was a bad time—we were dealing with April, and Roger's withdrawal, and—" He cut his sentence short, and took a small breath. "Things are different, now. I need to have them back in my life."

Allison's eyes rose to meet his through the bathroom mirror. "And how did you decide this?"

Benny sighed as he wrapped his arms around her waist. "Like I said, I've been thinking." He sighed again. "Come on, Allie. Please?"

She tilted her head back to kiss him softly and pulled out of his grasp. "Absolutely not."

* * *

"You can't deny that you're a little bit sadistic." Roger stretched his arms upwards and tried to hide the grin on his face.

"I'm not!" Mark protested. He was sitting on a chair in the "kitchen-area," alternately flipping through the newspaper and sipping from a chipped mug. "I'm not sadistic at all. I don't even like watching people in pain. Filming it is entirely different."

"Okay," Roger relented. "Masochistic, then."

"I'm not!"

This time Collins snorted, from his position on the sofa. "You_ lie_," He called over to Mark, and raised the joint to his lips. He chuckled a little and resumed reading the book propped up on his lap.

Mark averted his eyes from the gazes of his friend. "Maybe a little."

"Hah!" Roger pulled himself up onto the table. "That's what I'm talking about! You deny it, but we all know that it's true. Marky, you're a masochist."

Mark rolled his eyes and set his mug down. "Don't call me Marky. And you're not one to talk, you know."

Roger just grinned and stretched out again. "Hedonist, not masochist."

Collins snorted again. "And pleasure means pain, for you?"

"Maybe."

Mark laughed derisively and a pillow flew across the room from the couch, intended to collide with Roger's face. Instead it hit Benny, who had just emerged from the room after listening to the entire conversation.

"You're all idiots," Benny said, though he only half-meant it. He picked the pillow up from where it had landed on the floor and tossed it back to Collins, who caught it without looking up from _Invisible Man. _

"Guessing things didn't go so well with the business deal?" Roger asked, smirking.

Benny frowned at him and ignored the question. Of course things hadn't gone well with the business deal last night. It had been a bad one and he had known it. He'd barely been able to convince himself of its virtues, so why would he be able to convince anyone else? "Where's the coffee?"

"What coffee?" Roger asked. "We're starving artists, remember?" He slid off the table and leaned over Mark's shoulder to look at the newspaper. "Any good jobs?"

"Yeah, if you feel like waiting tables and washing dishes," Mark told him. He pulled a page out of the newspaper and studied it, then said to Benny, "There's some tea on the table."

Benny poured himself some of the watery, tasteless liquid that Mark liked to call "tea" and grimaced. The stuff was disgusting, but better than nothing. He swallowed another bland mouthful and glanced around the room. "I met a girl last night," He offered to the room.

"So you have no reason to be pissed off today," Roger said absently.

"I have every reason to be pissed off today," Benny countered. "She's rich and beautiful and hell, she's way above my standards." He leaned on the table.

"Just like half the female population."

Benny continued as if nothing had been said. "She'd be perfect, but damnit…is there any point in even trying?" He held his head in his hands dejectedly.

Mark set down the newspaper and raised an eyebrow. "You do realize that you're asking advice from a gay guy, a womanizer, and a guy who hasn't had a date in six months?"

"Damn, Mark. Six months?" Collins shook his head incredulously, and Mark shrugged in return.

"Yeah, well, I'm pretty limited in my resources here, if you can't tell," Benny said in response to Mark's question.

Collins sighed and folded down the top corner of page 145 to mark his place before looking up over the couch at Benny. "Talk to her. Ask her out. What harm will it do?"

"I could get turned down. She could laugh in my face. "

"So? You'll be right back where you started. You wouldn't have lost anything." Collins held the joint out to Benny, who walked over and took it, despite the fact that 9 A.M. seemed a little too early..

"I could lose my dignity. You guys would make fun of me forever."

"We'll do that anyway," Roger pointed out. He stole Mark's tea, took a sip, and made a face. "This tastes like—"

Mark snatched it out of his hand and glared at him. "Shut up. You didn't have to drink it."

Benny took a drag thoughtfully. "Okay. Okay, I'll do it. Who knows? I bet she's had a crush on me this whole time."

Collins, Mark, and Roger all burst out in laughter. Benny narrowed his eyes, and Mark stifled his snickers once he noticed the glare. "Oh, you were serious."

* * *

Allison trained her eyes on Benny from across the table. "I didn't have a crush on you, by the way."

Benny sighed and rubbed hand over his head. "I know, okay? That's not the point. The point is, if not for them, we might not have even gotten together."

Allison was not buying it. "You're trying to tell me that our relationship was formed based solely on the advice from a man who was high?"

"Not solely…"

Allison let out a sarcastic exhale of air. "Try again, Ben." She waved two fingers gracefully, a silent gesture to tell the waiter that they were ready for the check.

"Come on, Allie. You know that's not what the point. The point is, we lived together. We spent a lot of time with each other. We formed a bond, and I'm not going to let it all end like this. He doesn't deserve it. They don't deserve it. _I _don't deserve it."

Allison leveled her glare to his eyes. "But I do?"

"You deserve to get to know them."

"I know enough about them! I know that they refused to pay the rent, disrespect all forms of authority, and that more than once, they have almost ruined my marriage." Allison looked pointedly at her husband.

"Baby, we already talked about Mimi…"

"I'm not talking about the stripper," Allison said as the bill for the dinner landed on their table. "I'm done with her, Ben. That's over with. You know what I'm talking about."

"Allison. We're not going to talk about that night. I told you, it was a bad time." Benny leaned forward onto the table. "There have been times when they saved our marriage, too. You don't even know about those times."

"Oh, really." Allison leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms, unimpressed.

"Yes, really." Benny gave her an imploring stare that was forcefully ignored.

* * *

Benny sat on the roof, cigarette in one hand, alcohol in the other. _Great combination,_ he thought to himself. _God knows I'm allowed it tonight, though._

He took a gulp straight from the bottle and looked out over the city. If he squinted, he thought that he could see, far off in the distance, the place that was to be his new home.

Who was he kidding? He didn't belong there, in the world of money and materialism. He was a bohemian, and when he was in the richer part of the city he became a wolf in sheep's clothing.

But maybe not. Maybe he did belong there. He took a drag of his cigarette, intending to somehow combat the internal battle taking place.

It didn't work, just like he had known. He closed his eyes and set the bottle down. _What am I doing?_

A slight shadow fell over him, and he felt a presence settle down beside him. He knew who it was without looking. "Collins," He stated.

"Who else?" Collins leaned back onto his hands and looked up into the light-polluted sky.

"How is he?" Benny asked. He was sure that somewhere inside of him he meant the question, but right then it felt more like obligation than anything else.

"As well as can be expected," Collins replied. The vagueness of the response told Benny that Collins knew that Benny didn't really want to know. But could he be blamed for not wanting to know all the intricate details of his friend's depression and withdrawal? This was supposed to be a happy night for him.

"Why are you here?" Collins asked. It was the question that had been on him and Mark's minds all afternoon, Benny was sure, since he had walked himself into the loft for the first time in a month. Benny chose to purposely misinterpret the question.

"On the roof? I wanted to get some fresh air."

"You know that's not what I meant," Collins said.

Benny sighed. "I wanted to be here one last time. I still live here, don't I? I'm allowed to go to my own home."

Collins didn't say anything, but Benny knew what he was thinking—_This place stopped being home for you two months ago._

Benny defiantly ground his cigarette beneath his shoe. He didn't feel much like smoking anymore.

Collins let the silence rear up between them before finally saying, "Tomorrow's the big day, huh?"

Benny looked over at the buildings again. "Maybe. Maybe…not." He didn't know what he expected from Collins, but it wasn't what he got.

"Don't do that, Benny. Don't run away. It won't get you anywhere, you know that."

Benny wondered if Collins, like him, was now thinking of Roger, sleeping restlessly inside with an exhausted Mark kneeling beside him, the former a living example of disastrous effects of running away from problems.

"Maybe I don't want it anymore. I don't want to be married. I could leave, you know. I could leave this city and forget all this."

"You love her," Collins said shortly.

"Yeah," Benny said, and it was like a light had tuned on. He did love her. He loved Allison, and that was supposed to be all that mattered. "Yeah, I do." He wouldn't be running away, not today.

"I'm sorry," He said, suddenly desperate. Things had changed, and he was as much to blame for the way that he had reacted to the consequences as anyone else, if not more. He had run away after the terrible April ordeal, wrapping himself up in work and in Allison, and notably not in his friends. He had pushed away his roommates, and now, the night before his wedding, he knew that it was too late to get them back completely. There was so much that was left broken between them, and it was all his fault. They were so far from the days when they were Tom and Ben, and he didn't know if they would ever be able to go back.

Collins nodded, acknowledging.

"You'll come, right?" Benny asked abruptly. Collins, his best friend, wouldn't be his best man, and they both knew that. Things had changed too much over the last few months. But suddenly it meant a great deal to him that Collins would at least be there at the wedding. "You and Mark will come, maybe Roger?"

Collins didn't reply for awhile. He shifted positions, draped a hand over his knees. "Yeah," He said finally. "We'll come."

Benny sighed in relief, though he didn't completely know why. "Thanks, man." Collins nodded again in reply.

There was a silence, and Benny handed the bottle over to Collins, who drank easily.

"Where would you go, anyway?" Collins asked, breaking the silence. "You said you'd leave. Where would you go?"

Benny shrugged. "I don't know. Somewhere far, somewhere warm. Maybe…Santa Fe?"

Collins snorted and nearly spat up alcohol. "Santa Fe? Come on, man. What's in Santa Fe? Prairie dogs? Tumbleweeds?" He chuckled, then pretended to consider. "Then again, maybe you should go. You gotta a lot in common with prairie dogs, brainwise, at least."

"Shut up," Benny shot back without any malice, snatching the bottle out of Collins' hands. It would be the last time for awhile that things would feel almost alright between them.

* * *

Allison was silent over the phone. Benny waited anxiously at his desk, twirling the phone line, hoping that she would understand.

Finally, she spoke. "You were considering jilting me?"

Benny felt like slapping himself upside the head. "Yes, I mean, _no_, Allie. You're completely missing the point. I needed someone to be there for me. He was there. That's gotta be worth something, baby."

Once again, there was silence that stretched through the phone line and over the distance between Benny's office and Allie's firm. She spoke, and her voice was carefully neutral. "My lunch break is over, Ben. We'll talk tonight."

"I love you."

"I love you too. Bye."

Benny hung up the phone, and stared into the empty space in front of him. He cleared some of the papers off his desk and tapped his pencil inattentively. What would it take to make his wife see?

* * *

"I just want to talk with them," Benny pleaded to the woman beside him. "I know that you don't know them very well, but they trust you. Can't you tell them that I just want to talk? It's stupid to have this wall between us."

Joanne looked away and then back to him again. "Benny, I'm sorry. I just…I can't. It's not up to me."

Benny looked dejectedly down at the table in front of him. It had seemed perfect, when he had first figured it out. Allison had gotten a new job at a law firm (she didn't have to work, but she _wanted _to), and who was someone else who worked there? A Joanne Jefferson.

The name had sounded familiar to Benny, but it wasn't until he had seen her with Maureen and the others in the restaurant and then Allison had invited her over for dinner that he had finally recognized her. And then it had seemed perfect—someone who was friends with his old friends (he refused to think of them as ex-friends) and who had no negative opinions of her own about him. Yes, it was perfect.

So he had called her for a chat in Central Park, unbeknownst to anyone else, and now found that what he had wanted wasn't going to be nearly as easy as he had hoped. He had always been too hopeful.

"So you couldn't even try?" Benny asked.

Joanne bit her lip. "They've told me things about you, Benny. I admit that they've given me a somewhat biased version of the story, but I've been able to pick up on the important things. There's a lot of bad blood between you guys now. I agree that it should be fixed—this doesn't match up with the message of love that they—we—subscribe to."

"But…" Benny prompted, waiting for the clause that he knew was coming.

"But it's not up to me to fix this. I can't be the mediator between you and them—I don't know them nearly well enough to, and even if I did, I still wouldn't have that right. It needs to be between you and them." Joanne finished and looked at him expectantly.

Benny sighed. "You're right. I need to fix this myself. I just…" He sighed again and looked down at his hands, then suddenly back up at Joanne. "How are they?"

"Hmm?"

"How are they doing? I would call and ask, but they would just tell me off. How's everyone doing, especially after Mimi…?"

Joanne smiled a little, cognizant that Benny had found the loophole. "I can tell you how they're doing. They're better, now..."

Joanne had remained his source of contact about the old gang. He sometimes fixed the heater, gave them discounts on the rent that they never knew about, but he didn't fully feel as if he was helping them at all until he talked to Joanne monthly, finding out how they were doing. He didn't have the courage to ask them himself, but he could find everything out from Joanne.

Until the one day that Joanne had met his eyes and said, "They're not doing so well, Benny. Collins…Collins is in the hospital."

Benny's throat had clutched and no words had come out. "I have to go," He had muttered when he could speak again, and then he had known that something had to be done.

* * *

Allison and Benny sat at their table, eating dinner in terse silence. The only sound that filled the air was the metallic clinging of forks against plates, and the occasional clearing of throats.

Benny set his fork down. "I'm going, no matter what."

Allison twirled spaghetti around her fork as a response.

Benny continued. "I'm going, because he's in the hospital and I'm not letting it end like this. I did it with Mimi, but I can't do it with Collins."

Allison shook her head and laid her fork down as well. "You didn't do it with Mimi."

Benny didn't voice his surprise of his wife referring to Mimi by name. "I did. I went to her funeral, but I didn't talk to any of them. I paid for it, but I didn't fix anything between us."

Allison picked her fork up and ate the spaghetti ladled on it.

"I'm not going to put them above you," Benny told her. "I love you. I just want—I need them back in my life. I've ignored them for so long. I can't do it anymore. I need to reconcile my life, and…" He took a deep breath. "I want you by my side."

Allison chewed the spaghetti.

"Please, baby," He pleaded. "I'm going. I just want you to go as well."

She swallowed, and set her fork back down. "Okay," She told him, finally meeting his eyes. "Okay."

* * *

The two of them walked into the hospital, arm-in-arm, in a strangely comfortable silence. Benny didn't know what had finally convinced Allison to come with him, but for whatever reason, he was glad.

As they approached the hospital, though, he felt a ball of uncertainty forming in the pit of his stomach. What would be said? Would they accept him again? Most certainly not. The one who would be most likely to accept him was the one who now was lying in a hospital bed. How sick was he? Would he be able to recognize the face of his once-best friend? Would he want to recognize his face?

They found themselves at the first desk. "Thomas Collins' room, please," Allison asked smoothly, for Benny found that he couldn't speak. The nurse nodded and gave them the room number and directions.

They reached the door of the room and Benny stopped. "Maybe I shouldn't—" He started, but Allison stopped him.

"Shut up," She said. "You think too much." She put her hand on the handle and turned it, opening the door. He stepped in hesitantly.

They were all there—all of them who were left. Maureen, sitting in a chair right next to the bed, holding his hand. Joanne, standing next to Maureen. Roger, in a chair on the other side, guitar in hand, and Mark, sitting beside Roger, camera deserted. And there, in the center, Collins, looking weaker than Benny had ever seen him, and yet stronger than he had ever imagined at the same time. They all looked up at him when they heard the door open.

For a moment, it felt like not a breath was drawn.

Collins' eyes met Benny's, and there was so much in them that Benny almost looked away. He couldn't though. "Collins, I…"

"Ben," Collins said quietly. "I knew you'd come back."

Benny wanted to cry, but he wanted to laugh more. He settled on a tearful smile. "Tom, you always knew everything."

Collins laughed, a laugh that was full of sincerity and hopefulness and delight. "Damn, but I missed you."

Benny let go of Allison's hand and enveloped Collins in a hug that tried to make up for all the regret and lost time between them. When it ended, he stood straight once more and looked around the room.

"I'm sorry," He began. He could see that Maureen had her arms crossed and that Mark and Roger had scooted back in their chairs away from him, and it reminded him that not all was well. "I'm sorry. I want to be friends again."

"It's not that easy," Maureen said stiffly. Mark and Roger didn't say anything, but Joanne spoke up.

"What would Angel say?" Joanne asked, and her eyes fell over the entire room. "And what would Mimi say?" Her eyes reached Roger, who looked away. "No day but today, guys. He's really sorry."

"He sold out," Maureen said, eyes flashing. "He left us, and—"

"And you ruined my wedding," Allison cut in. Benny had almost forgotten his wife's presence until she walked up next to him. "Benny's told me stories about you guys, and about Angel. I'm prepared to forgive." It was all she said, but it was enough.

Collins laughed. "You got yourself a good one, Benny," He said, and laughed once more.

Collins' laugh brought everyone back into context. Benny could almost feel everyone relax once more, and he wanted to kiss his wife in thanks. Perhaps Allison understood more than he gave her credit for.

"Guys," Benny said with a smile. "This is my wife, Allison." Allison smiled at all of them, and added in, "Better known as Muffy."

This time they all laughed, and Maureen's eyes stopped flashing as she cast a glance at Collins.

Things were almost alright again, and as Allison grabbed his hand, Joanne rubbed his arm kindly, Maureen began to talk about her newest protest (her own form of acceptance), Roger called him a bastard good-naturedly, Mark pulled over two more chairs, and Collins smiled at him with twinkling eyes, Benny knew that it was all he could have asked for.


End file.
